Book Review: Für Elise by Mark Splitstone

This book attracted me because of its premise — a retelling of the Rip van Winkle tale, which is referred to a number of times in the text. Rather than falling asleep for twenty years, the protagonist (Hans) leaves Dresden and his teenage sweetheart (Elise) when he’s conscripted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. After thirteen years being held as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union he returns to find that not only has the city changed beyond all measure, but the political situation and the whole culture he left has changed, too.

The book is in two parts and for me it took too long to get to the interesting part. Hans’s developing relationship with Elise didn’t hold my attention for that long and a lot of it felt irrelevant knowing what was to come. Once Hans returned and faced the demons of what had happened both to his city and to the people he loved, and had to come to terns with a new political situation that was hostile to him, the book became much more interesting and there was much more of a sene of purpose about it. It got better as it went on and the ending had a twist that I genuinely didn’t expect — so, hats off to the author for that! 

That said, the book isn’t without its issues. To my disappointment it lacked any real sense of place— something that’s crucial in a location-dependent book such as this. I don’t mean that it lacked detail, because it didn’t: the descriptions of the cityscape before and after Hans’s exile were, as far as I can tell, immaculate. The problem was in the telling. Party it’s because it’s an American book written in American English and had no nod to its central European setting. Even a small touch, such as the odd word in German (such as a character addressing their mother as mutti rather than mom) might have lifted it a little and made a difference. 

I hate to say it, but the main problem I have with this is that the writing was pedestrian at best and that made it pretty hard to read at times. The story, as I’ve said, is thrilling at points (certainly once it gets going) but I always felt I was very distant from it. Neither the characters nor the place (and I’ve recently been to Dresden and read a lot of eye-witness accounts of what happened there) felt real to me and even the graphic (and accurate) descriptions of the horrors of the firestorm failed to touch my emotions as they ought to. It was all telling and almost no showing and I’m sorry to say that in many places I found it dull. I thought the dialogue was clunky and I never really felt invested in the characters. I didn’t feel their fear or their pain; I was’t shocked or angry as I read. I just read, without emotion and that’s definitely not what I would look for in a story dealing with such traumatic events. 

I think that’s a pity because, as I say, this offered a great story and a really interesting premise. But I’m sorry: I just think it could have been delivered a whole lot better.

Thank to Netgalley and the author for a copy of this book in return for an honest review. 

Review: The Secret Detective Agency by Helena Dixon

Oooh! A Second World War spy thriller-cum-murder mystery! Who could resist a book set in a period so rich with intrigue, especially when the setting is the Home Front, much cosier than anything in a more military setting? In this book (of course, no spoilers!) the focus is on the unlikely partnership between severe Londoner, Jane Treen, who is involved in co-ordinating a network of spies on the continent, and Devonshire country gentleman Arthur Cilento (a codebreaker and a young man physically unable to serve). When one of Jane’s spy network turns up, dead, on Arthur’s country estate, the pair are forced to work together to catch a killer and prevent more murders.

This book appealed to me for a reason other than the setting and genre — the author. I’ve read and enjoyed several of Helena Dixon’s Miss Underhay mysteries (and will eventually get round to the rest when my TBR permits) and so I reckoned I’d have a look and see how the author handled a different period. 

Well now. As I say, I enjoyed Miss Underhay very much but…whisper it…I think I like this fledgling series even more. It’s hard to judge on just one book, but I’ll definitely read on. All of the expected qualities in terms of writing, characterisation and setting are present. For me what made it different is that the context is much more serious — an existential crisis for the nation, rather than the often-frivolous 1930s) and so the stakes are higher. 

I became very invested not just in the success of Jane and Arthur’s investigations but in the relationship between the two very different main characters and the contrast between Jane’s stark London life (the descriptions of the aftermath of the Blitz are grimly fascinating) and Arthur’s much more cosseted country situation.

I look forward to reading more. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review. 

Flight Without End by Joseph Roth

This book, for which I have kindly been sent a copy in return for an honest review (many thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Press Classics), is a re-issue of a novel first published in 1927. It follows the story of Franz Tunda, an Austrian Jew who finds himself in Siberia after the end of the Great War and gradually works his way back to a society which believes him lost. 

Tunda’s travels (and his frequent sexual relationships) take him through revolutionary Russia, into Baku, back to Vienna, then to an unnamed university town on the Rhine and finally to Paris, where he at last encounters his long-lost fiancée. Readers used to a more modern novel might find the structure a little lacking and occasionally confusing (the narration switches between an abstract third person, Tunda’s diary, and a friend) but I didn’t find this off-putting.

I’ve always been fascinated by Europe between the wars, not just in terms of its political history, which can be complicated as well as dark, but with its society. This novel, written during the period, is overwhelmingly realistic and, though without the knowledge of the horrors was to come (like the author, the protagonist is Jewish). still contains hints at the darker forces that were stirring. As Tunda moved between spheres and adapts to them, always looking back with what feels like a curious detachment on the life he had, and the man he was, before, I was left with an overwhelming impression of the transience and brittleness of post-war European society.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I both enjoyed and feel enlightened by this bittersweet novel. 

 

Book Review: The English Wife by Anna Stuart

 

The English Wife tells the stories of two women during the Second World War. One of them, Clementine Churchill, was very much real and, as the wife of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, unavoidably at the heart of what went on. The other, Jenny Miller, is an American broadcaster and is not real, though the authors’ note tells us that she was inspired by a real person (Janet Murrow, wife of the US broadcaster Ed Murrow). 

As far as my grasp of history tells me, it’s a faithful retelling of a critical and fascinating period in world history, and I really enjoyed seeing a well-known narrative told from a different point of view, showing us how Clementine’s sense of duty, sense of self-worth and love for her husband didn’t always overlap. 

I admit that I was particularly touched by the story and, as I read, it rang bells with me. My mother used to tell tell how, as a little girl living in South Wales during the War, she raised money for Clementine’s Aid For Russia fund, and received a letter from Mrs Churchill in response. 

I think there can often be problems in telling a true and widely-known story, and its always easier (I think) to tell them through the eyes of a fictional character, rather than a real one whose deeds are known, whose letters and diaries are public and so on, which means the truth can be a bit of a straitjacket for an author. Because of this, Jenny’s life story felt a little more real to me than Clementine’s and I would have liked to have read more about her and seen Anna Stuart’s imagination take wing. 

That said, Stuart’s talent and Clementine’s life story combined to make this less of a problem than I had feared. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book, which I read in return for an honest review. 

Book Review: The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods

Okay, so I loved Evie Woods’ last book, The Secret Bookshop, and I was looking forward to her next, The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris. The thing is, it turns out this isn’t her next book but a previous one, a good decade old. And I hate to say it, it shows. When I first read it I couldn’t understand how the author had produced a book that fell so far short of her best and now I understand: it was because to was written way back on Woods’ learning curve as an author. 

I think that’s a pity, because I was expecting more of what I knew her to be capable of. All the elements that made The Lost Bookshop so good were there — in particular the magical realism and the setting — but they didn’t work as well. In the book, Edith Lane (who is thirty, though at different points feels anywhere between fifteen and fifty) leaves Dublin to take up a new job in a bakery in Paris but ends up in the town of Compiègne instead. Here everything proceeds exactly as you would expect. After a rocky start she makes friends, meets a handsome man with whom she has a misunderstanding, wins over her grumpy old employer, uncovers the bakery’s family mystery, solves the owners financial problems, and there you have it. 

It’s a slender plot, but slender plots done well are immensely readable. in this case, the longer the book went on the more predictable it became. Corporate bad guys, feisty incomer winning over the crusty old local, local support campaign for a much-loved but struggling institution goes viral, villain’s epiphany… It had nothing new or even fresh to offer, except perhaps a nod to Marcel Proust. And I was slightly surprised about that, since Edith (the heroine) makes such a bit fuss of not knowing anything about anything, so finding her reading classical French literature didn’t really stick. 

This feels really mean, and I want to emphasis again how excellently Evie Woods can write, but this particular book just didn’t work for me. The whole was less than the sum of its parts and certainly less than the quality of its predecessor. It was a light easy read and I loved the setting, but the characters were flimsy and the magical realism, which should have held the book together, came and went rather than being the thread that held the book together. 

It’s a light read, pleasant and unchallenging, but it’s definitely not one of the authors best, I’m afraid. 

Book Review: The Winter List by SG Maclean.

The Winter List is a historical thriller set in post-Restoration England, against a background of suspicion, mistrust and revenge. Charles II is on the throne and determined to take revenge upon those who signed his father’s death warrant: one by one they are arrested, imprisoned and killed. As the search for the regicides proceeds, there are some who take the opportunity for personal revenge. 

I read this book on the recommendation of a friend and it’s one I’m unlikely yo have picked up for myself. More fool me. It’s a period of history I’m not familiar with and yet was immediately drawn in to the setting. From Samuel Pepys’ London the story moves swiftly to York where Lawrence Ingoldby lives with his wife and family, concealing his connection to one of the most wanted of Cromwell’s men. 

As the Ingoldbys remain blissfully unaware of danger, Anne Winter and her maid Grizel are on a mission to find out whether Lawrence’s friend Thomas Fairly is a traitor to the King. Among the snickets of York Anne and Grizel are not the only hunters — and Fairly not the only one hunted. 

Beautifully written, with its characters fabulously drawn, the book twists and turns like a serpent in its death throes, full of heart-in-mouth moments and, at the end, a deadly twist. 

A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Dianne Freeman

 

It’s confession time. I first got my hands on a copy of this book back in the summer of 2020, ahead of its publication, and I did read it, but I never reviewed it. It wasn’t because it was bad. Looking back at the clutch of outstanding books I intended to review, I see they all date back to that point in 2020 when lockdown restrictions were lifted. From spending all day reading I was able to go out and socialise, go shopping, do things. And so I forgot the books. 

Belatedly, I’m going through them again and rereading them so I can review them with them fresh in my mind. This matters, because I’d forgotten, until I came back to this book, quite how much I enjoyed it. It’s a well-worm genre, the Victorian upper-class detective, but it’s none the worse for that. In this case out heroine Frances , the widowed Countess of Harleigh, is navigating the hasty marriage of her sister, Lily, when a series of accidents appear to get ever closer to Lily’s groom-to-be. Meanwhile Frances’ likeable and capable beau, George, is on the trail of villains and lends a helping hand. 

I’ve read a lot in this genre and I think this book benefits hugely from taking itself seriously. There’s sometimes a tendency for authors to mock the period and the class from which they have chosen their sleuths and victims, but in this case I felt all of the characters were properly fleshed out and therefore both believable and enjoyable. There were plenty of twists and turns and, while I remembered one or two from my previous reading, I remained pleasantly surprised by the way the plot turned, without resorting to silliness. All in all I felt thoroughly engaged and definitely enjoyed reading it for a second time. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books for a copy of this novel in return for an honest review.